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Cheese from Italy, Campania

CasoperutoCacioperuto

Raw sheep and goat milk is set with a coagulant made from macerated thistle flowers (Cynara cardunculus), broken finely and pressed lightly into small wicker baskets. After dry salting and drying on boards, the cheeses are washed in the cooking water of homemade pasta, rubbed with oil and white wine vinegar, coated with dried pimpinella and sealed in clay or glass jars. They ripen there for 6–12 months and take on a strong smell of mould.

Fully documentedCheese6 months – 12 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Regione Campania)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sources give no doses. Each cheese weighs 250–400 g and is moulded in a basket 10–12 cm across.
Raw whole sheep and goat milk, in varying shares[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Thistle-flower coagulant from Cynara cardunculus flowers picked in summer, macerated and filtered[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Cooking water of pettole (homemade pasta)[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
White wine vinegar and olive oil[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Dried, finely chopped pimpinella leaves[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 months – 12 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: A thistle-flower coagulant goes into the raw sheep and goat milk

Step 1 of 6
Set the milk with thistle coagulant
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Filtered raw milk is warmed in a cauldron and the thistle-flower extract is added.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw sheep and goat milk is set with a coagulant made from macerated thistle flowers (Cynara cardunculus), broken finely and pressed lightly into small wicker baskets. After dry salting and drying on boards, the cheeses are washed in the cooking water of homemade pasta, rubbed with oil and white wine vinegar, coated with dried pimpinella and sealed in clay or glass jars. They ripen there for 6–12 months and take on a strong smell of mould. Made in 6 steps over 6 months – 12 months. The longest step, seal in jars and ripen, takes 6–12 months (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)). Lactococcus lactis, the most abundant bacterium after ripening, and Debaryomyces hansenii among fungi, in Caciofiore, a related raw ewe's milk cheese curdled with thistle flowers and made without starter does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6–12 monthsReported[onaf-sheet]Seal in jars and ripen

What makes this one different

It is set with a thistle-flower coagulant, not animal rennet, and ripens sealed in clay or glass jars after a rind wash of pasta water, oil and vinegar. The name means "lost cheese".

Rind
Thin, slightly wrinkled skin, deep straw yellow, coated in dried pimpinella
Size
Cylinder about 10 cm across and 2 cm high
Season
Made March to September (ONAF)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Marzolino or marzellina di TeanoMade only in March, coated in wild thyme and ripened about 6 months in tuff cellar niches

Safety

Raw-milk cheese; the sources give no limits beyond the long ripening in sealed jars.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae, found in raw ewe's milk and in Caciofiore, a related thistle-curdled cheese.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The PAT sheet traces it to the old pastoral tradition of the Caserta borderlands.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, Prodotti tradizionali, 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano' (web page, updated 13 March 2015; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano' (id 1158)web
  4. [rampanti2023] Rampanti G, Belleggia L, Cardinali F, Milanović V, Osimani A, Garofalo C, Ferrocino I, Aquilanti L. 2023, Microbial Dynamics of a Specialty Italian Raw Ewe's Milk Cheese Curdled with Extracts from Spontaneous and Cultivated Onopordum tauricum Willd., Microorganisms 11(1):219 (Caciofiore, a related raw ewe's milk cheese curdled with thistle flowers; not this cheese)paper